Hitched
by mieh
Summary: Complete. Harvey and Donna wake up locked in a room with foggy memories and unresolved feelings.
1. Chapter 1

A little context: this takes place in season 6 (during 610, to be more specific).

The premise of this fic is blatantly stolen from a certain Castle episode. But it's not the same, so don't expect any tigers, ok?

Thank you so much to AlternateShadesofBlue for being so incredibly kind (and brave) to beta this for me, for being so supportive and just overall wonderful; to Etty and Ali for the unsuppressed shared giggles; and to Bia for being the first enthusiast of this idea.

* * *

 **I.**

Red.

It's the first thing he sees when his eyes snap open and it shoots a sharp pain along his temples. He shuts his eyes closed again trying to escape the clarity that filters red through his eyelids, trying to calm his throbbing headache. After a while he carefully flutters his eyes open again and realizes things are nowhere near as bright as his first attempt at waking up led him to believe.

Everything is rather somber except for one small window high on the wall in front of him where a few blinding streaks of sunlight are entering, filtered by a sort of reddish plastic cover that seems to have been precariously placed there to hide the view from the outside in.

Harvey raises his left hand to rub his eyes and realizes how heavy his arm feels. Actually, how heavy his entire body feels and he's suddenly struck with a consciousness of everything around him all at once: the brick unfinished walls, the mattress he's lying on top of, how high the ceilings are, how there doesn't seem to be any way out.

How he doesn't know where he is.

He makes an effort to move his stone heavy body and tries to use his right hand to prop himself up on the mattress. That's when he feels it. Something pulls on his arm, an added weight. A low whine to his right attracts his attention and for a second his confused brain experiences some sort of déjà vu, like he's being blinded by the bright red light coming from the window again. A second later he realizes he's looking at a soft orangey glow from where the ray of light hits her hair.

Donna's lying on her stomach beside him, face turned away. Her left hand raises to her head as she tries to brush strands of hair off her face. From the way she moves he can tell her body feels as heavy as his does. She moves to turn around and once again he feels a pull on his right wrist. This time he looks down.

His hand rests against Donna's, their wrists tied together by a thick rope and an intricate sort of knot. It looks like a marine rope and it grates again their skin. He can see how red the fair skin of her wrist has become.

Donna slowly moves to sit while Harvey props himself up against both elbows, eyes travelling from their joined hands to her face. She's staring at him wide eyed, fear sprinkled in the green spots of her hazel eyes. She looks so scared he immediately wants to put on a brave face for her but he's so astonished he can't. Probably wouldn't work anyway. He can barely fool her on his best days and this definitely isn't it.

"Harvey…" his name falls out of her mouth in a whisper but she doesn't know where to go from there and her throat is too dry to continue trying.

Harvey sits up in front of her and carefully rests their joined wrists on the space between then.

"Are you okay?" He runs his eyes all over her noticing she looks pale. Her face makeup had worn off which reveals more than a few freckles, her hair is all tossed to one side, draping over her left shoulder and she's wearing work clothes. No apparent injuries.

She nods extra lightly. She's not exactly okay and nodding makes her head hurt. "Are you?"

He looks about himself for the first time. He's also wearing work clothes but he doesn't have a jacket and his sleeves are rolled up. His tie is choking him.

"Fine…" he responds briefly before using his free hand to examine the rope that ties them together. It's rough and tight and for a second his brain wanders off to his little brother, the boy scout, who probably learned how to untie that thing while he was too busy trying to get into Harvard. He holds Donna's arm with his left hand, just above the rope, so he can lift their hands to get a better look without pulling on her already bruised wrist.

"Harvey, where are we?" He hears her voice, just as low as before, and lifts his head to find out that while he was concentrated on their wrists, she was gauging their surroundings.

They're enclosed by brick and cement walls, as if the place was under construction. There's a pile of debris in a corner that looks like some large pieces of wood and rocks, all dusty waste from construction. The only two sources of light are the small window high on the wall in front of them, and a lamp that flickered a weak yellow light from its place above the door behind them – a rusty metal door that gave no illusions of being open. They're on a mattress placed in the center of the room, and despite it being lumpy and uncomfortable it is covered by a seemingly clean sheet.

They lock eyes again. She is just as scared; he is just as worried. So he decides to focus on something he might actually be able to fix, instead of feeling completely panicked and impotent and… tied. He continues to fumble with the knot.

"It's not going to work like this," Donna says, paying attention to what he's doing for the first time. "We need to stick something in the middle of the knot to make it loosen before you can pull."

"How do you—"

"Like a corkscrew or something."

"Sure, I'll go fetch a corkscrew from my wine cellar, just a sec." His reply is snappy and he immediately regrets it, even before she fixes a look on him. "Sorry, I'm just…"

"I know," she brushes off his apology.

"Can you help me with this?" Harvey gives up on the rope and tries pulling on his tie instead, but the attempt does nothing for him. The item is still adding to the list of things that are currently choking him, along with the dry lump in his throat and the lingering panic.

Thankfully Donna is a little more coordinated with her left hand than he is, and she's able to untie the silky material completely and slide it off his neck. She unconsciously takes a second to smooth the collar of his shirt back down while Harvey undoes a couple of buttons and draws in a sharp breath.

"This thing is hurting you." He draws their attention back to the rope. He can see that her wrist is bruised under it and doesn't dare move his right hand even an inch, too afraid to hurt her more.

"I'm fine," she brushes off. "Why would they even tie us like this anyway? This is stupid."

"It looks like we were tied to each other's backs... But maybe when they got us in here they cut one of the ropes loose so we could lie down." It's the only thing that makes sense to him given how they are tied: both their right hands and their bodies facing opposite directions.

"Oh…" she acknowledges. "So you don't remember how we ended up here?"

"I don't- do you?"

"My mind is all fogged up. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't know… work?"

"Yeah, the clothes kind of gave that away…"

"What's the last thing _you_ remember?" he accuses lightly, furrowing his brows.

"I don't even remember work. I'm so lost… Okay, wait, I definitely remember this morning because I remember picking this dress. I remember being at my desk, and having coffee… I could really use some coffee right now..."

"I'd even drink some shitty green tea at this point. My throat is so dry it hurts."

They're silent for a moment, trying to search around their minds before Donna's fearful voice seeks confirmation to what they already know. "We were drugged, weren't we? That's why we can't remember."

Harvey nods slowly, swallowing the dry lump on his throat and looking deeply into her eyes. He wants to tell her he won't let anything happen to her but he's unable to form the words.

"I remember I was working late," he forces his brain to work through the fogginess and the throb in his temples that just won't go away, knowing that's all he can do for them now. "I was trying to come up with a plan to keep the clients that were threatening to leave after Sutter spread to the world that we threw his case to get Mike out of prison. You were there with me."

"I kind of remember us working at your office," Donna furrows her brows as if she could squeeze her brain for more memories. "It was late…"

"You weren't supposed to be there, but you stayed to help me," his voice is low and hoarse but the guilt in his tone is loud and clear.

Donna quickly continues their trip down memory lane before Harvey gets lost in his favorite spot at guilt avenue, "We were on your couch having drinks…". She has an image of folders scattered on his coffee table and Harvey leaning tiredly against the backrest by her side, swirling a few fingers of scotch in his glass slowly.

"Yeah, I think we had a few drinks…"

But then it suddenly hits her.

"We… Harvey, I think we had a fight," she stares at him, astounded by her own conclusion.

"Why do you-"

"I remember you screaming. You said something was on me…" she looks confused and hurt by even the faint memory of him shouting those words at her.

Harvey swallows and clenches his jaw because he immediately knows she's right. The mention of his own words brings up a string of memories to the surface of his brain. He's trying to put them in order, not sure of how much he wants to share with her, so he tries to buy some time. "I'm not sure we should press restart on a fight when we're in this situation."

"We need to remember what happened! And sweeping a fight under the rug when it could give us clues—"

"We were drugged and brought in here. That's what happened. Sooner or later someone will show up and we'll have some answers. It shouldn't take long. We've been here all night long; it's bright day out there…"

"What the hell, Harvey? I'm not going to sit here and just wait. Why are you even suggesting—" she stops mid sentence. Her expression going from exasperated to accusatory, tilting her head down and raising both eyebrows at him. "Wait, you know, don't you? You know what we were fighting about." It is the only explanation for his attempt to deflect from a conversation they obviously needed to have.

"I know it had nothing to do with why we're here."

"Harvey! Just tell m-"

The sound of chains moving on the other side of the door shuts her up. They jump to their feet and stare at the door, waiting. There's a sound of metal being dragged, a key enters the lock and soon the door swings open with a loud metallic squeak. A man walks in.

Donna feels Harvey's arm over her stomach. He's trying to push her behind him to cover her with his body but she refuses. She holds his arm with her free hand and lowers it back to the side of their bodies. She doesn't let go though. Her fingers clutch his arm, short nails engraving crescent marks on his forearm from how tightly she's holding on.

"What do you want? Why are we here?" Harvey demands in a threatening voice, as if he isn't quite literally a cornered animal in that moment.

The man ignores him and places some objects he's carrying on an old looking table by the door. He moves in such a calm and relaxed manner it terrifies Donna because she realizes he is fully in control of the situation. This guy is a professional.

"Working so late I'm sure you could use a vacation," the man's deep voice is finally heard. "Why don't you just relax and enjoy your stay at our luxury facilities? You're lucky you get to have such a good company," his gaze darts to Donna in a way that makes Harvey's eyes become slits of rage. "It was supposed to be just you. But if your friend Jessica Pearson is as smart as she thinks, you both should be out of here in no time."

The man leaves and they stay frozen until the door is shut again. Donna releases Harvey's arm and they quickly stride to the door to check what the man left behind: one decent sized bottle of water and two burgers in a take-out bag. Apparently their kidnapper is a fan of drive through. She hands the bottle to Harvey which he takes gratefully. After two large gulps of water he hands it back for her to drink, already feeling better after he hydrates, headache starting to subside. He notices Donna's lips are wet which she delicately wipes dry with the backs of her fingers.

Standing by the door, Donna carefully rests her ear against it, listening to nothing but silence both inside and out of the room. She's startled when she notices Harvey's hand reach to the door knob. He holds her eyes in his reassuringly before turning the knob which, not surprisingly, doesn't budge.

"We both know I had to try," he shrugs, and she recognizes the tiniest of smirks beneath his tense expression.

She makes an effort to smile back.

"Let's just take a look around this place," he suggests.

They start moving again but haven't taken two steps ahead when Harvey notices her wincing slightly as the rope pulls on them. He stops and, without saying a word, entwines his fingers with hers, holding her hand in his so they could move as one and the rope wouldn't cut into her wrist.

Donna's heels are tossed on the mattress, leaving her barefoot and a few inches shorter than him. She leads them forward as they continue to circle the room, but don't find much other than solid walls. There's the little mountain of debris in the corner, a small bathroom behind a precarious door with just a toilet and a sink and nothing else.

Their tentative three-sixty is quickly over, and they find themselves back at the end of their mattress, beneath the window that is too high up for them to look out, and definitely too small for them to go through.

"It looks like some sort of basement," Harvey observes, stating what she'd already noticed.

She nods lightly and averts her gaze from his. It would be impossible to hide her fears if he's staring into her eyes, no matter how good of an actress she is.

He squeezes her hand very lightly, trying to reassure her of something he doesn't actually know.

"So… lunch?" He indicates the table by the door with his head, deciding food will be a good distraction.

The thirst didn't allow them to notice before but they are actually famished. They sit at the edge of the mattress and a few silent minutes go by as they eat and share the bottle of water, joined hands resting between them while they hold their food as best as they can with the limitations.

She wants to bring it up. She wants to continue the conversation they were having before they got interrupted, wants to find out what they were fighting about and try to piece together what the hell is happening, but she decides to give him some time, sighing heavily at the fact that Harvey always seems to need too much goddamn time to open up. But it's not like they're going anywhere…

Donna's taking one more sip out of their shared bottle when she feels Harvey's thumb run very lightly over hers, moving slowly up and down her skin. They had unlocked their fingers once they sat, but their palms are still resting over one another, Harvey now caressing her hand softly. She dares a look at him and realizes his eyes are fixed straight ahead and he's completely lost in thought, apparently not even realizing what he's doing.

She lets her eyes wander around the room and they end up resting on the pile of debris again, and she's suddenly struck by an idea.

"Get up!" She snaps him out of his musing, drags him over to the corner and starts moving some pieces of wood, shoving them to the side.

"What are you doing?" Harvey asks, confusedly observing her outburst.

"Looking for a corkscrew."

"What?"

"There must be a nail in here," she says, the brief explanation enough for him.

Harvey gets her point and reaches to move some bigger rocks out of the way until they find a board with two slightly rusty nails going through it.

Donna smiles at him. "Do you think you could pull this?"

"Yeah." The board is really old and the nails aren't that stuck at all, so Harvey easily props the board up and hits the nails from the opposite side with a rock, freeing the little metal piece. He picks it up from the ground.

"Okay…come here." Donna leads them back to the mattress where they sit facing each other.

She sits on top of her folded legs and rests their joined hands on her thighs, examining the knot closely for the first time as if she's looking for something.

Harvey watches the concentration on her face, her brows furrowing slightly and a strand of red hair falling on her face. He has a sudden urge to reach his hand and tug the strand behind her ear but thankfully she's quicker in tossing the hair back over her shoulder. He lowers his gaze from her face and stares at their entwined fingers and linked wrists instead, trying to see what she's seeing to forget about his inappropriate impulse.

"I'm trying to figure out the loops here," she finally clarifies, "because I have to stick this nail between the loops to loosen the knot but I can't miss and damage the rope, or it will make this much harder."

"Okay…" He wonders how the hell she has this kind of knowledge about freaking knots but he doesn't want to break her concentration with his questions.

"This is a True Lovers Knot…" She mumbles to herself, still trying to figure out the loops in the not so great lighting.

"What?" Harvey gasps, wide eyes rising back up to meet hers.

"What?" She looks back at him, confused by his bewilderment for a second until she realizes what she'd said. "Oh. This is called a True Lovers Knot because it forms these two intercrossed rings here. See it?" She raises their wrists closer to his face, excitedly trying to make him see that apparently she found what she was looking for. "Okay so now I just…"

Her sentence trails off as she carefully sticks the nail between the loops of the rope and starts to twist it around until the knot gets visibly loose. She gives Harvey a smug victorious smile, accompanied by a quick raise of her eyebrows while she slides the nail off and discards it.

"How the hell do you know all of this?" Harvey asks, impressed and not able to contain his amusement because she looks so full of herself.

"My dad had a boat." She shrugs, suddenly very nonchalant about it while she uses her fingers to pull the ends of the now completely loose knot and finally set their wrists free.

Harvey cracks his knuckles while Donna spins her wrist and examines the red marks around it.

"You okay?" he checks.

It stings a little but it's no big deal so she hums a confirmation.

They look around once again, sighing in unison. For a minute they were so excited about freeing their hands that the reality hits them hard that it's the only thing free. They're still locked somewhere unknown, with no idea of why they're there or what's happening and they're both terrified.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

"So… This is about Jessica somehow?"

Harvey's pacing around the room when Donna's question stops him. His response is only a nod but she can see the worry in him – that red vein staining the white of his eye, the way he clenches his jaw and swallows dryly.

' _If your friend Jessica Pearson is as smart as she thinks, you both should be out of here in no time.'_ That's what their captor had said, but from the way Harvey's looking at her she knows he's caught more meaning in those words than she did.

"Harvey, what's going on? What do you know?" Her tone is soft rather than accusatory.

He hesitates, but only for a second. He wants to protect her, but he's never one to lie to her. "You know Jessica's working on a death roll appeal, right? Leonard Bailey's case?"

"Yes. The Innocence Project case she's helping Rachel with."

"What I know is they have new evidence that can prove their client's innocence. Evidence Leonard Bailey's public defender never pursued. She was convinced the guy was guilty and she had lost her main witness, so she made a shitty case. Bailey ended up being convicted without anyone ever asking for a DNA test on one of the victim's gloves from the scene. Well, Jessica now has those DNA results and they're not Bailey's. They belong to the victim's former boss. She's presenting that at trial tomorrow."

Donna's brows furrow in confusion. "What does that have to do with us being here?"

"When they present the evidence and ask for Bailey's absolution, the district attorney is going to get his hands on that and prosecute the guy whose blood just happened to be on a murder victim's glove even though he testified he hadn't been with her that day. And as it turns out, that guy is now a Senator."

"So you think they're trying to force Jessica to bury that evidence?"

"Two days ago some guy stopped Jessica on the street and threatened her to drop this case. This has to be it."

"That's why we're here… the cost of our lives is Leonard Bailey's." Her gaze drops in sadness and comprehension until Harvey's whispered tone brings her back.

"That's why I'm here. You shouldn't be here, Donna. This is my fault."

She shakes her head. "Harvey, stop. You're a victim here. Stop blaming yourself for everything that happens, you're not responsible for everyone."

"Not everyone," he cuts her and his voice is louder now, angrier. "I'm supposed to protect _you_. I told you I would never let anything happen to you but you keep getting hurt. You get hurt because you try to protect me, you get hurt because the world knows how much I care about you, because of my mistakes… and now you're here for no other reason than the fact that you were with me."

His eyes are glassy and she can see how much effort he's putting in to control his emotions, clenching his fists as if he's holding on tight to contain them in the palm of his hands, but the more he grasps the more it slips between his fingers. She would tell him that it's not his fault. She would tell him it's not his job to protect her. But she thinks it wouldn't really matter. This is Harvey Specter, the man who carries everybody's burdens over his shoulders, who's way too willing to take responsibility for everybody's mistakes and who never forgives himself.

She slowly walks closer to him, gaze dropping to his clenched fists. She wants to reach for his hand, but something stops her as soon as she gets close enough. It always seems to her that the same pull that attracts them to each other ends up pushing them away when they get too close.

"None of these things were your fault, Harvey. Things just… happened," she tries softly.

"Well, they shouldn't have."

"No, but what do you suppose we should do? Turn our backs and never see each other again? Or pack our bags and leave New York? Because the list of psychos who have a grudge against you gets longer every year," she smirks slightly, trying to make light of Harvey's ever growing list of enmities. "And this isn't even about you, it's not even your case."

Her words calm him down, as they always do, the way she's looking firmly and sweetly into his eyes actually doing most of the work. He grabs hold of his control again, breathing in and broadening his shoulders, although the heavy load on them remains firmly put.

"We're getting out of here," Harvey assures her.

"I know."

····························································

"Can we talk about something else?"

Donna asks after a few minutes of Harvey's conjectures about their situation: Where exactly were they? Was there any way to escape? Would Jessica have called the police? Who would notice their absence? Well, Mike and Rachel, and definitely Louis too, but how much did they know about what was going on? Would anyone else— Her request effectively shuts him up.

He forces his brain to flip to another subject even though he really wants to ask if anyone _else_ would notice her absence. "Hm… did we ever get those contracts back from—"

"Not work." She cuts him off with an eye roll.

"Ok…" He chuckles and ponders for a second. "How often am I supposed to water that plant?"

"What?"

"The cactus you gave me."

"That's what you're thinking about? Watering the plant?" She's actually laughing now.

"I just never remembered to ask you before," he shrugs. "And I didn't go home to water it yesterday."

"Well, you've managed to keep it alive all this time. You're doing fine."

She would introduce a new topic of conversation but she can see he has something on his mind, chewing the words inside his mouth, engines turning in his brain. So she waits a beat.

"So... how's _Mitch_?"

He looks away as he asks and the feign casualty in his tone is so evident she almost chuckles, but she's actually surprised by the question.

"Mitchell?" Her eyebrows raise to tell him she knows what he's doing with the pet name.

Harvey nods briefly and her surprise is instantly replaced by a sinking feeling she can't quite place, her sixth sense telling her something is going on. Maybe it's just weird because Harvey doesn't usually brings up her relationships, not if he can avoid it. But it feels like more than that.

"I wouldn't really know. We broke up."

She watches all of the subtle effects her words have on Harvey's face. How his eyes dart back to hers, widening the slightest, and how his mouth parts a second too early before his next words are pronounced.

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine." She has a faint smile on her lips because he sounds relatively sincere. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just making conversation."

She's too suspicious to buy in to his attempt to shrug it off. Her eyes are currently digging into him and studying each little detail from his demeanor to the tiniest twitch in his jaw and he knows it. He also knows he's never came out unscathed from her scrutiny so he stands and walks away before he would crumble.

····························································

Harvey's been pacing around the room and staring at the window for a long time when Donna finally decides to give in and break the silence.

"What?" she inquires.

"I want to look outside. See if it gives us any indication of where we are or if we can call for help."

"There's no way we can reach that window, not even if you stand on that desk."

"That piece of shit is barely holding itself up." He dismisses the table but suddenly seems to be picking his words rather carefully which immediately makes Donna suspicious. "I was thinking about something else…"

" _What?_ " She's annoyed she has to keep asking.

"Stand on my shoulders."

He doesn't pose it as a question.

She looks at him as if he's grown a second head, but then she shakes her head and laughs lightly. He's got to be kidding. Right?

Wrong. If the way he's looking at her is any indication.

Harvey cocks his head to the side and looks at her pointedly and wordlessly. It's his signature _'you know'_ look.

"Oh, no, no, no way!" She jumps off of the mattress she was sitting on and puts more distance between them, convinced he's gone insane. "I think you're experiencing carbon dioxide poisoning, you're clearly mentally confused."

"Come on, we can do this!" Harvey insists with a slight annoyance to his voice.

"Have we joined the circus and you forgot to tell me?"

"It will be easy, I'll hold you."

This time Donna's the one cocking her head and looking at him from below her raised eyebrows. It's her _'don't bullshit me, Specter'_ look.

Harvey responds with smugness and amusement. "What? You don't think I can handle you?"

He looks at her in a way that clearly reads as _'you know I can',_ but Donna decides to ignore his tease.

"I'd rather not break any bones. I'm very fond of them."

"I'm fond of them too. Just come here." Harvey's standing near the wall beneath the window and he signals for her to come close. "Let's put all those years of yoga classes to good use. Aren't you supposed to have superhuman balance at this point or something?"

Donna's still looking at him like she's sure he's gone insane and this is absolutely not going to work, but she approaches him slowly.

"How would we, hn… how would we even do this?" She doesn't remember the last time she's felt this awkward. She's standing barefoot in from of him, looking up and down his body which she's quite literally about to climb and thanking god she's wearing a flowy dress and not one of her body hugging outfits because she's sure going to need to spread her legs… Oh shit, this is awkward.

If Harvey's feeling awkward too he does a good job of covering it up, snapping into problem solving mode. "I'm going to hold you," he reaches and places both his hands on her waist, pulling her a little closer, "and I'm going to count to three and push you up. You step on my leg for a boost," he says as he squats a little to show her where she's supposed to stand, "and then you'll reach my shoulders. Ok?"

"Not ok!" she shrieks.

"Donna!" he lets go of her waist, dropping his hands heavily at the sides of his body, and steps back frustrated. "Have a little goddamn faith in me, will you?"

His words struck them, the deeper meaning knocking them both in full force. Only a few short seconds go by in their frozen stillness but it feels much longer as the two of them look into each other's eyes, unable to even catch a breath. He didn't mean it like that, at least not consciously, but deep down it's what he feels and they both know it.

She can't lose faith in him. Anyone else could, but with her it's different.

Harvey's about to backtrack, desperate to run away from the consequences his words might stir, but Donna moves first. Stepping closer to him, she wraps her fingers around his wrist and brings his hand back to her waist as he follows suit with his other one. She places both her hands on his shoulders and looks at him with certainty in her eyes as she says "Ok. Let's do this."

He tries to contain his smile by twisting his mouth to the side in a slight pout, but she would be able to notice that grin from miles away and she definitely wouldn't miss it now, when it's right in front of her face. She rolls her eyes but affords him an amused grin before nudging his shoulders to tell him to go ahead.

He grabs her waist tighter, counts to three, hoists her up while she steps on his leg and… she loses her pull, chickens out of climbing to his shoulder and loses her balance. Harvey holds her in his arms firmly until she's steady on the ground.

"If you laugh I'm not trying again," she says pointedly when she sees the look on his face.

Harvey bites down the laughter that's about to escape from his lips and puts on his best serious face. "Are you ok?" He decides is a better response.

She nods and he grabs her waist again. They repeat all of the same movements, except this time she's able to step on his shoulders.

She feels like she's going to lose her balance but she immediately feels Harvey's hands slide up her legs and grab her thighs just above the knees which provides enough support so she can stand up straighter and place her hands on the wall in front of her for stability.

"Boxing really does wonders for upper body strength, huh?" She comments lightly as she takes in the view from outside the window.

Harvey's hands are firmly grabbing her legs underneath her dress. Donna's light, but it's not the easiest task to balance someone standing on your shoulders. Her skin is smooth and soft and for a split second he worries he's going to leave marks on her until he decides they both have bigger things to worry about.

"We're definitely not in the city." He hears Donna's voice from above him. "There's not much here, just bushes and trees and we really are underground, like we thought. Harvey, I don't think there's anyone around…"

There's sadness in her voice and he wants to get this over with. "Ready to come down?"

Donna carefully slides down his body, holding on to Harvey by wrapping her legs around him and grabbing his shoulders. He supports her with a hand on her back and the other gripping the back of one of her knees.

Now that she's not risking any bone fractures it allows her to really feel what's happening on the surface of her body. His hands are warm and soft and they hold her with a strength that makes her feel safe for the first time since she woke up in that place. She feels how firmly his fingers are holding her thigh and it makes her realize she's clutching his shoulders just as much.

The weight of his glare on her face draws her eyes to his but she can't read him in that moment. Jaw clasped, a solidity in his entire face that contrasts the softness in his eyes.

She shifts in his arms trying to unwrap her legs from his body. It's not the moment to have a moment.

He relinquishes his hold on her, allowing her to stand.

"So…" She takes a step back putting some distance between them before smirking and raising an eyebrow. "That wasn't so good for our escape-the-captivity-aspirations but it's a great exercise."

He grins at her attempt to break the tension. "When we get out of here we should open a yoga-boxing gym."

* * *

Hey guys! I can't tell you how much I love and appreciate every one of your lovely reviews. They made my day. Hope you liked this chapter too.

Huge thank you to my insanely talented and amazing beta, AlternateShadesofBlue.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you guys so much for taking the time to read and review, for all of the lovely messages and for making this writer so happy. And thank you to AlternateShadesofBlue for being the best beta in all the land.**

 **Hope you like this one!**

* * *

 **III.**

The hours drag in that place. Harvey and Donna are in a constant state of alert, waiting for something to happen, anything. But nothing ever does. So they just stay there, making small conversation to pass the time and to distract each other, every once in a while falling into silence.

It's night already and they're in the dark, except for the weak yellow lamp above the door. Donna's sitting down on the mattress trying to reconstitute the previous day with the fragments her memory reluctantly grants her, little by little. She's done a good job so far and she's sure she was able to piece together most of her day, but as hard as she tries she can't remember the last hour or so of the night, before she was taken. She knows she was with Harvey in his office, she knows they had a fight. Flashes of images and lost words are dancing around her brain but not giving away much and she's getting more frustrated by the second for having to put this puzzle together by herself.

Harvey had paced around the room enough to drill a hole on the floor and he's leaning against a wall by the door, lost in thought, when he hears Donna huffing in annoyance and walking towards him.

She stands in front of him, crossing her arms to make it perfectly obvious that this time she's not conceding, and gets straight to the point. "Okay, what the hell were we fighting about?"

Harvey's gaze drops to his side, trying to escape her scrutiny, but he's cornered between the wall and her piercing eyes. He breathes sharply and raises both his arms before letting them drop back to his sides. "I don't know, Donna."

"Yes, you do. Don't bullshit me, I know you remember."

"I remember alright. But I still don't know what the hell we were fighting about."

"Just tell me what happened," she half-asks-half-demands in a frustrated sigh.

Harvey's suddenly as frustrated as her, the sharpness in his voice is painfully clear "What happened was one minute we were sitting at my couch together, trying to come up with a plan to keep the firm's clients and having drinks, and a second later we were screaming into each other's faces about you leaving me for Louis and you said I left you first and everything was a mess!"

She stays silent for a few seconds, watching puzzle pieces joining together in her mind and forming an image that finally starts to make sense.

"You said I betrayed you…" She remembers slowly.

"You said I left you."

He doesn't need to force himself to offer any more explanations or context because he knows she remembers. He can see it on her face as the memories come back to her, the fog in her brain clearing up just like it happened for him a few hours before. He's glad he at least doesn't have to repeat all the painful words they shared, nor force himself to say for the second time the things he buried deep inside for so long, but that had found their way on to the surface last night.

That conversation had been too long in the making. It was bound to happen sometime. He said he loved her and turned his back on her. She said she loved him and turned her back on their twelve years together. They fought, got some distance, tried to stay friends and eventually found their way back to each other, but what happened all those months ago was still latent inside them both, simmering and building up pressure and waiting to erupt because, like with every other thing that actually matters in their lives, they never talked about it.

She never told him how she felt when he said she was the one person who mattered the most to him and how that uncovered feelings she thought were set in stone. She never told him how she felt when he told her he loved her as if he wasn't actually letting anything out at all, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and she should've known already. And then watch him turn his back on them and leave. She never told him how it felt when he tried to take his words back. When he tried to diminish his feelings for her but ended up diminishing _her_ along the way.

He never told her how he felt seeing her walk away from everything they had, leaving him to deal with the wreckage she left behind. He never told her how his entire being collapsed into panic because he had lost the single most important person in his life. He never told her how betrayed he felt not only losing her, but losing her while she stayed within reach, working at the firm and making it painfully obvious she didn't have a problem with the work, she had a problem with _him_. He never told her he didn't know how to deal with the 'I love you' she left behind so he never did.

But sometime around their third glass of scotch they began to say these things.

It started amongst the frustration of seeing all of the firm's clients slip through his fingers and Jessica not doing anything to save the firm because she only cared about her death row case, and Mike refusing his offer to come back, and he hadn't even known where fucking Louis was. Everything was crumbling and he'd felt like everyone was abandoning him.

It was probably the notion of people leaving him and her reassurance that she never would that caused a switch to flick inside him, lighting up the bitter memory that she had left him before.

Donna remembers she was caught completely off guard by his hard words being thrown at her, telling her to not make promises she wouldn't keep. Telling her she had betrayed him before. Loud, bitter and accusatory, resentment dripping from every syllable.

She snapped right back at him, as if the words were already formed on her tongue, waiting to crash down.

 _._

" _You left me first, Harvey. Did you suppress that so much into the pool of denial that is your brain that you forgot you left me right after you told me you loved me?"_

" _I didn't leave_ you _! I just left."_

" _Why did you leave at all?!" she screamed, feeling the sting of her eyes welling up._

 _He didn't answer her. Again. He would say it's because_ 'she knows why' _but she was starting to think it's because he doesn't._

" _You did the same, Donna. You told me you loved me and turned your back. The difference is you actually left_ me _."_

" _I didn't leave you, I just stopped working for you."_

" _That's leaving me."_

" _No, Harvey, it's not. I was still here, in the same building, everyday, and I tried to move on as friends but you started to treat me like a stranger!"_

" _Was I supposed to act as if nothing had happened when you left me?"_

" _That's what you always do, Harvey! You tell me you love me and you want to act like nothing happened. You're jealous when I'm with other people and you want to act like nothing happened. We sleep together and—"_

" _And YOU want to act like nothing happened! That's on you, Donna!" He was screaming back in anger, eyes red-rimmed._

" _Oh, you're right, I forgot. I wanted to act like nothing happened. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that you looked to my face the day after and told me if you knew we could still work together you never would've slept with me!"_

" _What?! That's not what I meant and you know it."_

" _Stop telling me I know things! I don't, Harvey!"_

" _Here's something I don't know, Donna: why did you leave me?"_

 _He finally asked the question that had been eating away at him all that time. The one thing he could never truly understand after weeks of therapy, after recognizing everything she'd done for him over the years, and even after she came back to him. That question still gnawed at him late at night when he was alone._

" _You have got to be kidding me…" She sighed, hands treading through her hair in frustration. "Do you really have no clue? You can't think of a single reason why it would hurt me to see you walk away? Why I would need some distance after realizing I've spent twelve years of my life tied to a man who was so damn scared to risk anything he would never face his own feelings?"_

" _Were you facing your own feelings when the first thing you told me when I tried to make things right between us was that you've been seeing some guy the whole time?"_

" _Oh, you mean while you were sleeping with Louis's sister? You are such a hypocrite, Harvey…"_

 _._

And that was it. From a stressful evening dealing with business to a screaming match that ended with her calling him a hypocrite and his rebuff being interrupted by the arrival of two strange men who entered his office in the dead of night. She remembers it all. Next thing she know she wakes up in this place, tied up to the man she couldn't remember she was so furious with several hours before.

Donna looks at Harvey's face in the shadows of the room. His eyes are fixed on her too, dark brown and stark looking. She can see he's hurt, but he's not angry like he'd been the night before. She's both though.

Of course he tried to keep that conversation out of her memory. Once again trying to escape the aftermath of every emotional confrontation he's ever had with her. He opens up then hopes she didn't see it. Or ignores the fact that she did. She knows he's not over this yet because he asked about Mitchell earlier, even with the risk of igniting her memory, but still he's trying to desert their battle.

Maybe he was right. Maybe resuming a fight when they're in a situation like this is a terrible idea because now, on top of being locked up and afraid, she can't even look at Harvey.

····························································

She's as far away as the mattress allows, back turned on him. He stares at her hair, almost colorless in the gloomy room with only the slightest hint of copper, and wonders if the color is so engraved in his retinae he could see it even in the dark.

She's curled up, embracing herself protectively, trying to draw some warmth from her own body. His eyes follow the curve of her pale neck to her bare shoulders. He knows she's cold, uncomfortable and afraid. He feels as if the rope they had earlier discarded from their wrists is now wrapped tightly around his chest making it hard to breathe and just plain painful, realizing not being able to protect her physically hurts him.

She ignores his first attempts at calling her. A whisper of her name had fallen from his lips two times already, well spread apart in gaps of silence. She doesn't know whether he's trying to restrain himself to not call her or building up the courage to do so. But his third attempt is more decisive. He calls her name and doesn't wait for her silence. Instead he reaches for her and places his hand on her shoulder.

His voice is whispered and hoarse when he pleads. "We'll have the rest of our lives for you to be mad at me, but right now, will you just let me be here for you? Please?"

Harvey's hand slides down her arm. His palm is soft and so warm against her freezing skin she feels that it's melting both her and her resolve.

Donna turns her body and for a minute just looks at him, leaning on her elbow. She wants nothing more than the comfort of his arms. That's clear enough that she's forced to break down the walls of denial she's been working so hard on keeping solid through all those years and admit it to herself. But admitting her need for him rips her skin off. Exposes her. Feels like that wall is collapsing on top of her frail body.

Her body moves the few inches between them and into his arms without much consent. It's a self defense act, as if it somehow realizes staying away hurts worse.

Their moves seem choreographed, like they know beforehand exactly how they're supposed to piece together; as if they were built to do so and the lifetime they've spent putting physical distance between them wasn't able to change the substance of who they are enough to prevent them from still doing so.

His left arm extends on the mattress, offering itself for her to rest her head and then it folds around her shoulders, holding her the same as his right one is already doing at her waist. Both of Donna's hands rest between them, against his chest, as he tightens his embrace, bringing her even closer. He tangles their bodies, hooking his leg over hers, trying to cover her as much as he can to protect her from the cold, from her fears, from what might happen to them, and even from her own feelings. Her face is nuzzled in his neck and he feels her breathing warmly against him, her nose brushing his skin.

He thought he was doing this for her, but having Donna in his arms makes him feel a sense of completeness. It makes him feel such calmness that he wonders if maybe holding her is a completely selfish action, despite his best intentions. He breathes in what feels like his first full breath since their fight, lungs filling completely and heart beating slower, soothed. He's breathing in the smell of her hair and can't remember ever holding something so valuable.

Donna feels him nuzzle against her, noticing their breathing has synchronized, chests expanding at the same time while she feels his heart beating under her palms. She can still smell the faintest hint of perfume on his shirt while she breathes into his throat, but it's mostly just him. Harvey's hand glides over her back slowly, warming her up and soothing her at the same time, smoothing the sharp edges of every emotional torment that's been inflicted by this day.

Soon the bigger picture of their reality lessens, replaced only by the comfort and calmness of being in his arms, breathing him in and feeling his heartbeat, as if their whole existence was encapsulated in that one tiny cut of reality. She feels warm and safe and can't help but to succumb into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

Donna wakes up still in Harvey's arms. His hold on her had loosened during the night and now his arm drapes heavily over her body while he's fast asleep. She raises her head from the nook beneath his chin where she rested all night, leaning on an elbow to be able to look at him.

His head lies in an uncomfortable looking position, since his arm served as her pillow, but his expression is soft as he breathes slowly. She notices the small gap between his lips and allows her gaze to rest there for a while, tracing the contours of his mouth, before she turns her attention to the two moles above his eyebrows. She doesn't usually get to look at him this way. Unarmed, soft and completely vulnerable. It feel as if she's witnessing something private, but what scares her is not that she might be stepping on unpermitted territory, but rather how natural it feels. That's the man she knows to always be there, beneath the stiff, impetuous, seemingly unbreakable shell.

Harvey's leg, hooked over hers, still locks her in place. She can't get up without waking him, so she moves her hand slowly around the side of his body, softly sliding over his rib cage until it reaches his back. He shifts the slightest, but the movement isn't enough to wake him up, so she calls his name in an almost whisper.

Harvey's eyes open slowly to find Donna gazing at him and he's immediately aware of the feel of her body enclosed in his arms. Her hair drapes over his arm, and she looks pale and sleepy. He realizes then that the soft warmness he felt move delicately around his body as he drifted to consciousness had been her hand.

"Hey." His voice is low and drowsy but it has the undeniable tone of hesitation. He doesn't know if he's even allowed to 'hey' her at the moment.

"Hey." Donna says back but her tone is impassive. He can't tell what she's feeling and it makes him anxious.

He's suddenly aware of how limply his arm rests over her body. It feels stupid in contrast with the fact that just a few hours before he had held her tightly in his arms until she fell asleep and long after that. He wants to fix it, he wants to properly hold her and pull her back into his chest. It's absurd that his inability to touch her would cripple him after an entire night of closeness.

And yet, it does.

He moves his hand to her arm because it seems like a safer move. It's just enough to make him less self conscious. Just enough to not let go of her yet. She doesn't flinch, which he half expected her to.

As he tentatively draws circles with his thumb, she easily reads the worry in his face. They carry one of their wordless conversations then.

She offers him an eyebrow raise which means that yes, she's still mad at him. He proceeds to look at her with remorse written all over his features, eyes pouring into hers in a stark contrast to everything his lips aren't saying. Donna lets him stew in his uncertainty for a second or two before she rolls her eyes and grants him half a grin because she's willing to let it go, thinking that's as far as their apologies ever go anyway.

She quickly moves to disentangle her body from his, but Harvey stops her before she can. He holds her hand against his chest to keep her in place, his leg refusing to unhook from around hers. She's taken by surprise. Harvey usually grabs every opportunity he can get not to discuss feelings, but now he's literally holding on to a quite predictive trouble.

"I really am sorry, Donna."

"You can't be sorry, Harvey, because you meant what you said." There's no aggressiveness to her tone. She's simply stating a fact.

"I did. But I didn't mean to hurt you." His voice comes out low and hoarse, the way it always sounds in each of the rare moments his words seem to come from somewhere deeper within him.

"In that case, I'm sorry I hurt you too."

He hesitates, but the words eventually find their way out. "So… where does that leave us?"

The irony doesn't escape her, as her eyes unlock from his to wander around their confinement. "Nowhere, Harvey. It leaves us nowhere. We're still stuck."

····························································

"This waiting is horrible." Donna says anxiously, not attempting to hide her discomfort. "I hate not knowing what's happening."

 _Of course she does_. Harvey grins to himself.

The hours go by slowly. They're pacing around the room, both incapable of staying still as anxiety from the lack of information builds up. The heavy tension between them from their suspended fight only makes everything worse. As much as they try to act polite, there's an awkwardness between them they're unused to.

The fight, the kidnapping, the lingering tension of the argument that _didn't_ happen last night and whatever it is that feels so heavy in their chests after waking up in each other's arms. It's too much, all at the same time.

"The trial is at 4 p.m.," he informs her. "Assuming Jessica does whatever she needs to do to get us out, it should probably happen after that."

"By 'whatever she needs to do' you mean let a man who trusted Jessica with his life receive the death penalty for a crime he didn't commit?"

Her accusation is sharp enough to cut. The ice cold tone of her voice not enough to anesthetize his flesh as her words pierce through him. Harvey's reaction is immediate, exploding between them like gasoline to a fire.

"What would you have me do, Donna? Sacrifice both our lives even though it wouldn't make a fucking difference? You think if Jessica goes ahead with the trial they won't find another way to get what they want, on top of killing us?"

Apparently they're not over their fight yet. They were walking on edge and the lightest stumble was able to push them over it. Now they're free falling right into what they've been trying to avoid.

They've had fights before. In fact, that's something they're really good at. But this time they had gone too far – literally as far as twelve years ago to dig up past wounds and things unsaid.

"Oh, so you're not _actually_ sorry, are you?" She accuses. Harvey's lashing out at her about Jessica and the trial but she knows that's not where this is coming from since ultimately they can't do anything about that. It's not their battle to fight, they're just the pawns. If she's completely honest with herself maybe her attack on him also came from the same ulterior place.

"This has nothing to do with that!" He scolds.

"Yes it does! Because you're hurt and the only way you know how to express your feelings is with anger. Or maybe you're really just angry, I don't even know anymore."

"You're damn right I'm angry!"

"And why is that?"

He's silent. Again. It's infuriating the way he shuts down when he doesn't want to say what he so desperately needs to. He turns his back on her. This would be the moment one of them leaves – him, to run away from confrontation; her, because she's too mad at him. Except this time they can't.

So she decides to forge a hole on the door and give them both a way out.

"Let's just leave it, Harvey." She says quietly, breaking their heavy silence, ready to take a turn of the road and drive back somewhere safer.

But he doesn't take the exit. He drives to the road ahead in full speed, knocking away the 'caution' plaque. "No, you know what? We better finish this! Let's revisit our earlier conversation."

"Sure, great idea! Let's see… You're still angry at me for leaving. I'm still angry at you for being an asshole. Is this where we stopped?"

"Nice," he scoffs, but steps closer, nearly towering over her. "You never answered my question."

She shakily holds her ground and tries to deflect once more. "What question?"

"Why did you leave me?"

Donna's taken aback by his willingness to actually pursue that path, to insist on a question that would force them to really go that deep.

When he asked that two nights ago she assumed he did it only to escape her own inquiry – the lawyer in him was certainly trying to rattle her, challenging her certainties and discomposing her to get himself a mistrial. But now that doesn't make sense anymore. She offered him an out. She's not cornering him with questions on his actions or feelings and he has lots of room to escape. She can't see how insisting on that would benefit him, besides maybe soothing his ego. But she's not giving in so easily.

"Well Harvey, get in line because I have an unanswered question of my own," she scoffs, but her voice trembles.

"Oh, so was it all for revenge? I couldn't tell you how I love you so you left me out of spite?"

"Yes, sure, Harvey. Because I always deliberately do things to hurt you, don't I? And how interesting that you knew exactly what question I was talking about."

He ignores her ironies, his voice louder each time he insists on the same question, with unwavering determination. "Why did you leave me, Donna?"

"Oh my god, you sound like a broken record!"

The words are stuck on her throat. A huge irrational part of her just wants to answer and get this over with but the response is something she had barely admitted to herself so how could she possibly admit it to him? She's choking on the truth.

"Will you just answer my goddamn question?"

"See how it feels when someone refuses to let you in, Harvey? And by the way, just so you know the difference, _this_ is spite."

Exasperation runs through their blood stream, makes their skin itch. They're trying so hard to run but the soles of their feet stick to the thick layer of fear that covers the floor.

"Goddamn it, Donna! You either want to talk about it or you don't! You can't have it both ways. Yes, I told you I loved you. I meant it. That's all I've got. Now: why did you leave me?"

"Because it hurt, Harvey!" The words escape her mouth in a loud surrender. "It hurt realizing that I was holding on to feelings so deeply inside myself I never even saw that they were guiding every choice I made for twelve years. It hurt realizing that my life was bound to yours and I was so… and that you… and you didn't…"

 _I was so in love with you, and you didn't love me._ Those are the words trapped in her throat. She doesn't know if she's actually able to pronounce them because it makes her so vulnerable it wounds her. It makes her feel smaller and naked to have to say out loud that she simply needed him to love her. To want her.

She freezes in a second of silence, trying to force the words out, resigned on giving Harvey this one last piece of herself because she just can't hold on to it anymore. But before the words can reach her lips, Harvey does.

Both his hands are on her face, one immediately treading beneath her hair while he kisses her intently. The force with which he lunged to her made her stumble back a couple of steps before holding on to him.

There's a desperate sense of need in them that could simply be due to the uncertainty of their lives beyond that trial and that day. But somehow it's something more. It's the urgency of a moment over ten years in the making. The urgency of letting the heaviest of loads off their chests when they couldn't carry it inside anymore. The urgency of both surrender and conquest.

Harvey's lips move against hers. Soft, warm and wet. He sucks on her bottom lip and takes the opportunity to slide his tongue to meet hers. His hands travel down her back to reach her hips and pull her closer. He glues their bodies together while Donna's arms wrap over his shoulders, hands caressing his neck and nails raking through his hair. A soft moan escapes her lips as he holds her tighter.

Slowly, their lips part but their bodies remain glued together, both still holding on to each other, noses brushing and lips grazing. Harvey's eyes open the slightest, gazing at the closeness of her mouth while he feels her breath cool down the warm wetness she left on his lips.

"I've wanted to do this for a long time," he whispers into her lips.

"Why didn't you?"

"Wasn't sure if you'd let me. Wasn't sure if you'd still be there after."

"What do you mean?" Her lips graze over his as she asks.

"I was afraid I'd lose you."

Harvey's words make her heart beat so fast she's convinced he can feel it thumping against his own chest.

It's such a simple explanation it seems unfair that it could've been the reason for everything they went through for over a decade. That something so elementary and plain could explain the complexity of their relationship. Harvey had abandonment issues, she knew that. It was almost too obvious that he would be afraid to lose her. So why did she never reach that conclusion before?

"Aren't you afraid anymore?" She asks quietly, failing at commanding her voice to sound steady.

"Terrified," he grins "but I was more afraid I would never get to do this," he brushes his lips over hers slowly and then accuses her lightly, a smirk on his lips, "and that apparently you thought I didn't want to. I thought you were supposed to know everything. How did you not know this?"

Despite having asked herself the same question only seconds ago, she doesn't concede.

"I knew you wanted to kiss me," she raises one eyebrow and gives him a small mischievous grin that is so damn seductive he almost cuts her off with his mouth. "That much was obvious."

"Was it?" He chuckles softly and grazes his lips over hers again, unable to keep apart. "So what _didn't_ you know?"

Her lips part but no words seem to form. She looks into his eyes in lingering silence, softly running her hands on the nape of his neck.

She can't ask again. He might run away, he might shut down, he might push her away, he might try to convince her she already knows, he—

"I'm in love with you, Donna."

His words stop her misguided conjectures dead on their track, setting her heart into overdrive as he gives her the softest look she's seem on his face in twelve years. He's smiling at her and he looks just so damn happy she feels her entire skin bursting up in flames. It suddenly hits her that, for all the things she's always claimed to know, the one thing she failed to see was exactly how much Harvey loves her.

She compels air to enter forcefully in her lungs, realizing she forgot to breathe a long time ago. That's all she manages to do before his lips crash into hers again.

Their kisses are hurried now, an intoxicating chaos of lips and tongues and teeth clinging to each other with twelve years worth of longing. His hand angles her face as she swallows his groan, an arm wrapped around her waist holding her hips firmly against his. He grips her hair to get access to her neck and his mouth leaves wet kissed on its way down from her lips, to chin, to neck, sucking on her flesh and allowing his tongue to taste her skin.

"Harvey…" His name comes out of her lips in a breathless moan.

"I've missed this so much."

Her hand moves under the hem of his shirt and reaches warm skin, but she immediately freezes at the sound of loud noises outside. The first noises they hear since they got there. Male voices yell, something heavy drops and they hear people running.

Harvey pulls Donna to the wall opposite the door, trying to get her as far away as possible from whatever is happening out there. He places himself in front of her protectively. This time she's not able to stop him from shielding her with his body, but again she grips his arm tightly, holding him close to her as if she's scared he could do something reckless.

They don't know what time it is, but they know it's too early for the trial to be over. The noises outside make it clear there's a lot more people there than the one guy who's been keeping them for the last day. Things are surely not going according to the plan, whatever the plan is.

Suddenly the shouting stops.

For a second everything is silent, but then they hear a couple of voices in the distance get progressively closer, along with footsteps. They hear the metal door to their captivity being unlocked and Harvey tightens the hold he has on Donna behind him. He can feel her breathing heavily into the collar of his shirt while his eyes remain glued to the door, waiting for it to open.

When it does, they're faced with two police officers and Jessica Pearson herself.

* * *

 **This is ending, guys. Thank you for all of your amazing reviews (they make a world of difference and keep me going). Next – and last – chapter will come very soon.**

 **I'm running out of ways to say thank you to AlternateShadesofBlue for being my beta. Can I just thank her for existing and being so great?**


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

Red.

It's the first thing he sees when his eyes flutter open and it causes a lazy smile to spread on his face. Warmth takes over his chest as he stretches lightly, careful not to move the mattress too much.

She's laying there beside him. Both arms up hugging the white pillow beneath her head, red hair splayed on his sheets. He can count every single golden freckle on her face beneath the soft morning light that filtered through his glass windows. He doesn't shut the drapes much these days because she likes waking up to the morning light, and as a result his mornings now are tinged in a soft golden hue that add on to the surrealism of waking up next to her. But he knows he's not dreaming. His eyes follow the path of freckles down her back watching them fade into pale skin and further down until the sheet that drapes over her hips interrupts his gaze.

It's the second Sunday he gets to do this. The second Sunday of their not yet two week long relationship. He wakes up before her for a change and his reward is time to gaze at her peaceful unconsciousness beside him and just bask in the awe of how beautiful she is. Breathing slowly, face half buried in his pillow, pink lips and eyelashes resting on her cheeks. She's insanely pretty.

On weekdays, Donna usually wakes up before him for work. _Usually_. He smiles to himself thinking about how he's already so used to their little morning routine he can't imagine ever living without it again. Or understand how he could've gone so long without it. Twelve years of missed opportunities to be this happy stings a little, but it's hard to feel anything but bliss when she's lying naked beside him.

She _usually_ wakes him up with kisses on his shoulder, chest, cheek, lips… until he can no longer pretend to be asleep, defeated by the need to wrap his arms around her, to bring her closer, to kiss her fully.

Sometimes she's still lying beside him when she does it, so he can happily roll on top of her, kiss her slowly and tease her endlessly. Other times she's hurried and already dressed for work as she leans over him in bed to wake him up, so he has to use some persuasion tactics. The one where he holds her hips, pulls her body on top of his and slides his tongue along her neck is especially effective – he had been able to slip her out of the dress she'd just put on at every attempt so far.

But as it seems to be the start of a habit, he woke up before her today. This Sunday is shaping up to be like the last one and there's nothing he wants more in the world.

His hand touches the nape of her neck softly, brushing off a few strands of hair to the side and off her back. He slowly slides his fingers down her spine until they reach the small of her back where he decides to let his hand rest, lightly massaging her skin, attention focused on the two dimples there. The sound of her soft humming makes him gaze back up to find out she's smiling lazily.

Harvey leans and places a few kisses on her shoulder blade, grinning at the sight of goose bumps over her skin and her shoulders flexing as a shiver runs down her spine.

"Good morning," she murmurs.

"Morning." He parts his lips from her back and lies on his side, but keeps a hand caressing her cheek and the crook of her neck.

"What's that face?" Donna asks as soon as she opens her eyes, noticing the soft and undeniable grin on his lips and just _something_ about his eyes.

"What face?"

"That silly grin that makes you look like a teenage boy who has just seen a naked girl for the first time. And got to skip school. And got some ice-cream."

Harvey laughs hoarsely. "I _am_ looking at a naked girl, there's no work today so I guess that counts as skipping school and I'm sure we can trade ice-cream for whip—"

"Shut up."

She moves to her side and places her body flush against his. Soft breasts smashing against firm chest as she wraps her arms around his neck and gives his a lazy good morning kiss, letting her lips slide against his. She hums into his mouth in content and opens her eyes for a second to gaze at Harvey's closed ones and expectant lips that draw a grin, waiting for her mouth to meet his again.

His arms wrap around her waist, squeezing her tighter against him, feeling her stomach press against his as she seductively hooks one leg over his body. She stops their kiss with sweet pecks and raises an interrogative eyebrow. She's still waiting for an answer.

"Oh. This face. Right." He furrows his brows, feigning concentration as if he really had to think about it. "I guess it's my happy face."

"Nope. I've seen your happy face lots of times. That's not it."

The way she says it, slowly and with a smirk on the corner of her lips, makes him double take her until he realizes he's being teased. She obviously already knows exactly what that face means.

"Okay…" He chuckles and concedes easily. "This is my completely, unequivocally, happiest-man-on-earth face."

"Ooh, yeah!" She acts as if struck by sudden realization. "I think I recognize it. It's been around _a lot_ for the last… What? Eleven days?"

"Yeah, it's kind of making my jaw hurt. I'm not used to smiling this much. We need to make it stop."

"Not gonna happen, Mister." She delicately caresses his jaw then, before moving her fingers to the base of his head and letting her thumb run smooth circles behind his ear. "But if you need some exercises to stretch your jaw muscle, I can help you with that." She places her open mouth on his, hungrily kissing him and he instantly responds, devouring her back in a long wet kiss.

She feel his hands reaching lower on her body, finding a way between her thighs and can't contain a whimper as what until that moment was simmering low on her stomach reaches boiling point.

She suddenly stops the kiss, panting a little, trying to push against his chest to get some distance, but his arms tightly wrapped around her waist don't allow it.

"We need to get up."

His eyes widen. "What?! No, we don't."

She opens her mouth, ready to argue, but it only makes it that much easier for him to bite on her lower lip and silence her next words. He grabs the back of the thigh she has over his hip and pulls her body on top of his. Donna kisses him again, hair falling around his face before he can tread his fingers through her mane and hold it back, delicately caressing her face on the way. Their lips lock sweetly this time.

"If we don't… get up… now… we never will." She manages to formulate an argument between kisses.

"It's settled then. We'll never leave this bed."

"Seriously," she giggles into his mouth, "we really should do something today. We can't just stay in bed all day _every_ Sunday."

"Who says?"

"I do."

"Okay." He stops kissing her for a second and pretends to think about it. "Do you want go boxing with me? I think we've proven it's useful." He would suggest going mudding if it meant she would refuse to and they could stay in bed.

"Oh, sure. Are you doing yoga with me, too?"

His answer is more than enthusiastic. "Absolutely! I'm very interested in some of those positions. I hear you do it on mattress…"

"Mat."

"…so we can start right now."

For twelve years they have been bound together. A string of loyalty, repressed feelings and overlooked desire hitched them to each other. But it took literally being tied to one another to make them realize that's how they always wanted to be.

He lowers his lips to her collar bone, sucking on her skin, and as he hears soft moans mix with her laugh he knows he won. They're definitely not leaving the bed today.

····························································

After the arrest, Harvey and Donna gave some preliminary depositions to the detectives at the scene before Jessica's driver could take them home.

Harvey sat at the front, leaving the backseat to the two women. He barely listened to Jessica's explanations about how she had contacted the police, and how they were able to find their location, or how the senator who ordered their kidnapping was now under investigation and in preventive arrest. Didn't even hear her explain how that helped prove Leonard Bailey's innocence and that his verdict was about to get overturned. It was all background noise.

They had their windows down, Donna having said something about already being locked up for too long, and he could see her behind him through the wing mirror. The entirety of his attention was focused on the way the wind messed with her hair and how she smiled softly. He was willing to bet she was also not listening to a single word that came out of Jessica's mouth. After all, he was feeling pretty lucky.

The car had barely stopped in front of Donna's place when he got out to open her door, not wanting to risk that their driver could do it first.

Harvey walked her to the steps of her building, slowly and silently. Awareness of both Jessica's and her driver's gazes fixed on them from inside the vehicle making him ridiculously self conscious.

When they got to the building entrance Donna stopped and faced him. She appeared to be extracting some kind of amusement from his uncharacteristic but very obvious shyness.

He desperately wanted to invite himself upstairs with her, and the coy grin on her face made him believe that she wouldn't oppose the idea. But she deserved more. More than desperate, rushed, exhausted, showerless sex. _He_ wanted more. He wished he could at least kiss her goodbye. He still felt the ghost of her lips tugging at his before they were interrupted and it felt so good he could be convinced it was a dream if not for the very real police interrogation he had to deal with after.

The way he pressed his lips in a thin line and raised his eyebrows at her made her chuckle. She knew he was inwardly cursing the two pairs of observant eyes on them.

"I'll see you later, okay?" He said grumpily, and Donna nodded, still smiling.

She watched him take a few steps towards the car before turning to get inside her building, but his voice then called her back.

"And by 'later' I mean I'll pick you up at seven. You better rest quickly, cause I'm not waiting any longer."

She laughs, shaking her head at him.

"We've just spent over thirty six hours locked together. Are you sure you want more?"

"I want a lot more."

His tone was serious. She felt herself swallow, eyes locked on his.

"See you later, Harvey," were her only words before entering the building.

He got back into the car feeling like the happiest bastard on the planet, but used all of his poker skills to keep an impassive expression.

"You're an idiot," Jessica told him with what she thought was a knowing look as soon as he sat beside her.

For the first time in his life Harvey could confidently tell her that, in fact, this time, he wasn't.

He pulled his seatbelt on and let his stupid grin take over his entire face.

.

* * *

 **That's it, guys! The end. Not going to lie, I miss it already. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope this was able to bring some much needed happiness to your Darvey shipper hearts.**

 **I want to thank everyone who was wonderful enough to review this, everyone who shared it on twitter and told me how much they liked it. Writing is hard work and it's a lonely work so hearing back from you guys is what makes it all worth it. Thank you!**

 **Speaking of that, this one wasn't so much of a lonely work because I was lucky enough to have AlternateShadesofBlue by my side. Thank you Blue for being so supportive and generous with your time, with your writerTM knowledge and with your always incredibly kind words. This fic (and this writer) wouldn't be the same without you.**

 **Also thank you to Etty and Ali for being amazing cheerleaders and for all the support.**

 **Last one for the road: I would be super happy if you could leave me one last review** ❤


End file.
